THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS
By J. A. SPENDER. AMAN of my age is conscious of a certain change of opinion about the Press. It used to be called " the Tourth Estate," and at most public banquets was honoured with a place on the toast-list after Queen, Lords and Commons. The proposer on these occasions approached his subject with a rhetorical low bow and great British enlarged on the power and dignity of the that they set to the organs Of opinion. and the example rest of the world. speeches in my early days • I have heard dozens of these speec and have an uneasy feeling that, if made today, they Would be listened to With politely suppressed laughter "by the journalists present and scarcely suppressed titters by the rest of the company. For if there is anything that (air most widely circulated newspapers 'do not wish to, be, it is any kind of solemn institution. It is, in fact, exactly the reaction from solemnity on which they most pride themselves, and on which they have built their fortunes. The veiled oracles who used to inspire awe have almost passed away ; the great " we," that mighty atom of former days; has been split into innumerable " I's" ; the press has come down into the market-place and is in active competition with other entertainers for the world Which amuses itself, and, above all, for the sporting world. I arnnot passing any censure upon the zeit-geist which has brought this development with it, but I think we must realise that, when we talk of the " freedom of the Press," 1;11e words do not stir quite the same emotion as in the days when the idea of laying hands on 'the great organs. of British opinion caused a shudder in the free-born Briton. ' I have often in recent days been. asked why the great Variety show of the modern Press should not be submitted to the same kind of censorship as the theatre, the music-hall and the other betting agencies, and though I wish to keep that thought at a distance, the answer is tot quite so self-evident as most journalists would like to • . believe.
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. I am against the extension of the Puritanical censorship if only' for the reason that if the of censoring .hegins no one knows where it will stop. But I am not much moved by the protests which high-browS.periodically liplike on this subject. Literature cannot expect to be m exempt from the common judgement of what is and what a .is not pornographic, and the rare prosecutions on this restraints Worth have not, so far as I can see, pladed any straints Worth considering on the liberty of modern writers. Fiction has pretty well got itself established as a branch of pathology and enjoys most of the liberties claimed by science. It seems to me a mistake to high language about the liberties of the Press on these occasions ; for if we do, our claims to other and much more important liberties may be seriously discredited. The really im- portant freedom is not that of dancing on the edge of Campbell's Act, but freedom to write fearlessly on matters of public importance, freedom, above all, to express un- popular opinions—Lopinions which the established autho- rities may think dangerous. • We have taken this for granted for so long that it is even how difficult to think that it can be in danger. But we have.to face the fact that over at least half of Europe this freedoth has utterly vanished. What is specially disquieting is that when the " advanced " thinkers come to power, they seem to have as little regard for it as the reactionaries. A free Press can no more be tolerated by the Communist than by the Nazi or the Fascist ; Lenin and Stalin are as clear about that as Hitler and Mussolini. If we think it out, the objection is not in either ease a personal idiosyncrasy ; it is the necessary consequence of certain attitudes and theories. An infallible Church may be content (Or in modern times may have to be content) with an Index of works forbidden to the faithful : an infallible State must suppress the dissent of the unfaithful. The moment it 'permits itself to be challenged with pen or tongue, it is in • danger. This - is one of the laws of its being, whether its " doctrine is that of Karl Minx or that of Adolf Hitler. It claims to •be as wise as it powerful, and such a claim cannot be exposed to critical scrutiny. That any' sane politician can 'suppose himself to have a. niOnopOly 'of political truth need not be belieVed. But it is the necessary working hypothesis of the Dictator, 'and, after machine-guns, his handiest way- of keeping himself in Power. I think we must face •.the fact that if our politics got into this region, the liberty of the Press would' be no safer in this country than in others, where Political absolutism has got itself estab- lished: With us the' liberty of speech and writing has developed with the development of tolerance, which assumes that we are all liable to 'error' and that progress is most probable when all sides are heard in a continuous debate. It belongs essentially to it world 'of compromise in which give and take and a 'Certain deference to minorities are acknowledged principles with all parties— the world in which British polities have hitherto been conducted. If we passed into a world in which black- shirts knocked opponents on the head or Socialists tried to effect a revolution by Orders in Council, the liberty of the Press would be worth no more than any other liberty.
We have discovered that war is disastrous to the liberty of the Press, but we arc perhaps not quite so ready to recognise that violence in politics is equally threatening. One hears extremists on both sides vowing eternal devotion to liberty, but at the same time advocating policies and methods which must be fatal to it. Liberty depends on a certain agreement about fundamentals and the acceptance of gradualness as the law of change. Whoever wishes to turn a given order of society upside down must, if he gets his way, be an enemy of liberty ; he and his party would, like the other Dictators and their parties, be 'in a position in which they would he compelled to extinguish opposition and criticism. TIWT must be on top or nowhere. As a mere matter of common sense, • it would be impossible to govern anY country with alternating periods of Fascism and Cora' munism, as this country was goVerned for so many years with alternating periods of Liberalism and Comm, servatism. One or other would have to go under.
To sum it up, I should say that, in this country as IFt others, the political liberties of the Press depend nil preventing Conservatism from slipping over into Fascism and Radicalism into Revolution. . To prevent either will need conscious effort in the coming years, and No had better not take anything for granted. If danger threatens, it may be a serious matter that the Press should have lost so' much of the divinity which hedged it in former days.
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